Local Governance Comparative Approaches Seminar Series
Session 1 Summary Report
Across many fragile and conflict-affected states, central authority has collapsed, receded, or is actively contested as institutions struggle to respond to the pressure of the 21st Century. However, governance has not disappeared. Instead, it is being led by local communities as they develop practical systems from below to fill the gaps left by traditional state institutions. It is therefore vital to rethink the way in which governance and aid delivery are conceptualized in these contexts.
Throughout 2026, the Renaissance Strategic Center (RSC) at ARDD, in collaboration with ODI, is holding the ‘Local Governance Comparative Approaches Seminar Series’, bringing together the people on the ground responding to, and creating this new era of governance. This series of closed virtual sessions is designed to generate comparative insight into emerging local governance models, document practical responses to fragmentation, and inform international policy adaptation to a more decentralized world.
RSC is pleased to release the Summary Report for Seminar 1 in the Local Governance Comparative Approaches Seminar Series. The report is titled ‘From Mobilizations to Governance’ and details the key findings from the first event.
Contributions were made by activists, civil society organization’s, and governance practitioners, and provided details about the changing local governance landscape in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, and Lebanon. The report follows the structure of the session and is divided into three sections: Communication Strategies, Social Media and Movements; The Provision of Services and Governance; and The Question of Legitimacy.
Following on from this session, RSC would like to announce that Seminar 2 will take place in mid-May and will be titled ‘Current Transformations///Comparing Forms of Service Delivery and Governance’. This session will be framed by a discussion of local governance in Karenni, Myanmar, before examining examples of local governance in different contexts across the globe. The seminar will look at local governance alongside the state, in the absence of the state, and in the context of an aggressive state. Seminar 2 will build on the discussions of the first session and explore in more detail different case studies of local governance.
